


This is not that story

by ifreet



Category: due South
Genre: Crack, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-01
Updated: 2009-05-01
Packaged: 2017-10-10 10:26:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifreet/pseuds/ifreet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frannie turns into a frog.  No, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is not that story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sansets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansets/gifts).



Frannie clung to the side of her brother's desk and tried to control her breathing. She summoned up the voice of the instructor from her brief fling with yoga -- the breathing exercises were alright, but anything that looked that ridiculous just couldn't be that relaxing. _Deep breaths, in and out, in and --_ Someone brushed by too closely, and she lost the rhythm again, breaths coming shallow and fast and ending, disturbingly, on a soft croak.

She edged higher on the desk, the tiny claw-tipped toes of her webbed feet finding purchase in cracks too small to see from her usual size. She just had to stay calm and wait, and Fraser would fix this. She wasn't exactly sure what had caused it, or how, but she was sure of that. Because in stories, what turned frogs back into people? A kiss from a prince. And even if Fraser weren't practically a knight in shining armor anyway, there was that whole _Royal_ Canadian Mounted Police thing, which she figured had to be the closest anyone could find to royalty in the city.

So. Calming thoughts. _In and out and in and --_ She shrieked, her calm broken this time by the terrifying and sudden appearance of a muzzle full of sharp teeth. She sprang blindly away from the menace, landing awkwardly on a file. Unfortunately, the file was being held at the time by someone who squawked and launched her back into the air. _Ray,_ she thought. She'd know that squawk anywhere.

Her second landing was slightly more graceful and put her on top of the desk. Frannie'd seen Diefenbaker scavenging pastries, though, so she wasn't entirely out of the woods. She'd bunched up to spring again and was watching Dief's ears to know when to move, when someone grabbed her and lifted her out of wolf range. She was thankful for that much, but the hand was dry and raspy, and the grip a bit tight. She squirmed, and the hand closed tighter still. She froze, except for the rapid chirruping breathing. The hand lifted her up to Fraser's baby blues.

"Fraser, it's me," Frannie called out. Okay, so it sounded more like "Creak, creak, croak," even to her, but she was sure Fraser would understand.

"A tree frog," he replied. "_Hyla versicolor_, I believe."

"Oh my God, put that down, it's gross," Ray interrupted.

Frannie stuck her tongue out at him -- only it was a lot more tongue than usual. Startled, she pulled it back with a snap, blinking.

"Ew," Ray said, and she kinda had to agree. "You're going to get warts."

Frannie croaked indignantly.

"I thought that was toads?" Elaine asked, stepping into view beside Fraser. She handed Ray another file folder. "Bueller, known associates of."

"Neither - amphibians don't cause warts. Presumably that particular misconception has it's roots in the bumpy appearance of certain species, but --"

"Good to know. Now put that thing down, we've got a lead."

Frannie shouted, "No, wait!" But of course all that came out was more croaking.

"Not on my desk!" Ray added over his shoulder, right as Fraser started to set her just there.

He sighed and changed direction, only to bring her eye to my-what-a-big-eye-you-have with an intensely interested Dief. He froze. "Oh, dear."

She croaked rapidly in agreement.

"Here," Elaine said, and Frannie swore she could hear the eyeroll.

"Thank you, Elaine." Fraser passed her off, despite her distressed croaking. She made one final lunge for Fraser, but Elaine closed her other hand over top of her.

"Whoa, there. I think he likes you better, Frase."

But there was no reply. Fraser was already gone, and Frannie could have cried. Except apparently frogs don't have tear ducts.

~~~  
Frannie watched with interest as Elaine pulled up Cameron's criminal record and read the lowlights to Ray over the phone. Before she'd even hung up, she was gathering up the print-out of recent burglaries near the neighborhood of Detective Huey's home invasion case. Before today, she couldn't have told you what a civillian aide did -- she'd supposed it was like being a secretary. Parts of it were. Elaine answered phones and delivered faxes to the right desks and did some filing. But she also seemed to pretty much keep the whole division running smoothly and did a surprising amount of the background work for detectives out in the streets. And all with a calm confidence that was entirely Elaine.

Like the way she'd acquired the jar Frannie was sitting in, and then commandeered the lettuce leaf from Huey's sandwich to put in it.

"Frogs don't even eat lettuce," he'd objected.

"Maybe he'd like somewhere to hide," she replied. It wasn't a very convincing argument, but he forked over the lettuce anyway before asking her to run a report for him.

Frannie had only hidden under it once, when Lieutenant Welsh noticed the jar. "What is that?" he'd asked in that grumpy voice that made her think of getting caught behind the bleachers and the related trips to the principal's office.

Elaine hadn't even glanced up from the report she was typing. "A tree frog."

"A tree frog."

"Fraser found it."

"Of course," he said, or maybe sighed, and walked away.

Elaine, Frannie decided, was pretty awesome.

After dropping the print-out on Huey's desk, Elaine gathered up her bag and the jar. "Ready to go, Froggie?" She waved at Welsh on her way out, who nodded back. Maybe he wasn't as much of a hardcase as Ray made him out to be.

There was a small park not too far from the station. Elaine carried her to the edge of a puddle of a pond and unscrewed the lid. The jar tipped sideways. Frannie hopped forward so she wouldn't land on her nose, then hopped again away from the falling lettuce and onto Elaine's waiting palm. Elaine glanced around and, inexplicably, blushed.

"You never know," she murmured and pressed her lips to the top of Frannie's head. (And a good portion of her back. She was a small frog.)

Then with a shrug and a smile, she set Frannie down, turned, and walked away. _That's right, it was a princess_, Frannie thought, before that sinking shrinking feeling that had overtaken her at the station struck all over again, but backwards or inside out, until she was standing on her own two size six feet again, her heels sinking into the soft ground as she watched Elaine walk away.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [This is not that story (podfic)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/746242) by [mergatrude](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mergatrude/pseuds/mergatrude)




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